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Squash makes a rich, sweet and comforting partner to pasta. It is most often stuffed into ravioli of tortellini but it can make a hearty sauce with very little effort. The trick is to find the right consistency, too thick and it feels like soup, too thin and it won’t coat the pasta. The crème fraiche helps with the saucy feel but if you want to forgo any dairy then a few spoons of olive oil will work instead. By grating the squash we are creating a larger surface area and therefore speeding up the cooking process.

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Key facts

Ingredients

1 onion, finely diced

1 large rosemary stalk, leaves chopped

2 garlic cloves, peeled & finely chopped

1 small squash

300ml hot stock

2 tbsp crème fraiche

1 nutmeg

250g pasta

Parmesan

Salt & pepper

Method

Put a large pan of salted water on to boil. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil a saucepan and gently fry the onions for 10 minutes until starting to soften. Peel the squash and remove the soft seedy core with a spoon. Coarsely grate 400g of the flesh.

Add the rosemary, garlic and grated squash. Fry gently for 2-3 minutes before tipping in the stock. Simmer gently for 15 minutes until the squash is tender. Stir in the crème fraiche. Season with salt, pepper and a generous grating of nutmeg to your taste.

Cook the pasta. At this point you can leave the sauce as it is or blend it into a smooth silky sauce with a stick blender or liquidizer. You want the texture to be just thicker than double cream, thin with a dash of pasta water if too thick.

Drain the pasta, add in the sauce and mix well. Serve with grated Parmesan and a few turns of black pepper.